​I run on fumes until my two hour p day nap and then I'm good to go! :) it's been another good, sweaty, tiring, week in Benton, Arkansas!

Started out the week with a District Meeting... In Spanish. We have a group of Spanish missionaries in our zone, and we have to go to their meetings so there are odd numbers of Elders and Sisters. I was surprised by how much of it (in parts!) I could actually pick up!

That afternoon, we went on an exchange with the Little Rock Elders, and we started out in a trailer park out in some place I never would have guessed to be in the "Little Rock Area." It was out in the middle of nowhere. I got to practice my recently-tested Spanish skills with a lady who was more sympathetic than she was understanding hahahaha.

We chatted with a guy for a few minutes as he was working on his truck. He couldn't get it to start, and then during our chat and right as he needed to get going, the truck started, surprisingly enough to the guy we were talking to. He said we could come back haha. Miracles on miracles. You could choose to see that as a coincidence but it's more fun to think God was involved.

We then went to a more downtown LR neighborhood, to visit a Bible referral. She was looking for patience in her life and has some challenges. And a lot of warning signs on her house about getting shot lol. We tried a former investigator down the street, who had moved years ago, but met a cool guy named Amos who we chatted with for a while, so yay for following promptings!

The next morning, we had our own District Meeting, which went pretty good. My first one in Benton! We've got a good group.

Elder Bolos and I went out to visit an investigator we hadn't seen in a while. He's progressing pretty well, but has only been to church once, a month or two ago. He welcomed us in and we talked for a long time. He talked about all the ins, outs, physics, and strategies of sailboat racing, and it was honestly pretty fascinsting. And on top of that, it turns out sailboat racing and physics makes for a perfect analogy for living the gospel. So all of our minds were blown as we started connecting the metaphors together. It was really awesome.

On Thursday, we had our MLC (Mission Leadership Council). We took a wrong turn going into North Little Rock, and the GPS ended up taking us through this really nice neighborhood along a river... It was pretty.

President Hansen shared the baptism goal for the month of October, which is 28, and then each zone prayed about how many baptisms we could contribute toward that goal. When we all came together, we were only 2 off. So please pray that the Benton Zone can help 4 people in September, and 3 people in October to enter the waters of baptism!

Sis. Hansen pointed out that a lot of the MLC group (consisting of the Zone Leaders & Sister Training Leaders of the mission) is pretty young. I mean I'm still pretty young, too, but I was one of the handful in there that had been in those meetings for longer than 6 months.

In related news, I hit my 15 month mark this week, so I'm down to 9 months left. WHAT. I'm getting old in mission age.

After MLC, we got back to Benton in time for breakfast for dinner. Then we did some finding after that and met some characters. One guy was smoking on his porch and told us one side of his families is criminals, and the other side of his family is gypsies. #Arkansas

Another lady was probably in her late 60s and was on her phone walking around kind of all over the neighborhood. We caught up to her and started talking. Turns out she was playing Pokemon Go hahaha. We had a good visit with her, though, and she started talking about geneology! Her nephew is a member of the ward here, and she said we could come back with him. So we are excited about that! Pokemon Go: putting the elect in the missionaries' path.

We did a lot of service on Friday. It started out as just laying brick in a side yard. Or, that's what we thought we'd be doing, but we just leveled the sand for it, so we basically just played in a sandbox. Then another member called and asked for some help picking up "large tree limbs" from the side of the road to use as firewood. Yeah those "limbs" were big ole cedar logs. It was like high noon, the sweat was shiny, and dirt was sticking to it all. I'm still a little sore haha.

On Saturday, we had a zone miles call with the guy in charge of all the cars for the missionaries. We have mile limitations each month, so we were just reporting all of that stuff. Had a good visit with the "chase you off with a broom" lady, sharing parts of Moroni 8 because her 3 year old son had died in a gun accident several years ago.

We went to Chili's for dinner cause Elder Bolos had a gift card. When we finished and were ready to pay, though, he couldn't find it. We figured he had accidentally dropped it and it had gotten picked up between the car and our table somewhere. Our waitress went to look for it, and came back with one, but the cars number didn't match the one on his receipt... So that kind lady just got us a whole new gift card. People are so nice!!!

Church was good on Sunday. We gave that investigstor who's been struggling to come to church a wake up call. He answered, said he was up, but sleepy, and then we headed to church. He never came cause he had fallen back asleep. So next week, he's getting the wake up call, AND two guys pounding on his door. :)

We got back and had studies, and then headed out to visit some people that we had met this week. Unfortunately, the 2 or 3 we had hoped to visit both had their spouse answer the door, and the spouse wasn't half as interested as the other we were hoping to talk with. So that was a major bummer.

Did some tracting and found a few semi-interested people. One guy was busy but said we could come back in a few hours. So we returned home and ate after fasting all day. It was a harder fast than usual cause I was sweating so much out. But we then went back to try him, and lo and behold, no one answered the door.

We finished our weekly planning when we got home and had call ins with the missionaries in our zone. Things are going awesomely!

From here on out, each week gets busier and busier until the end of the transfer and September. There's a lot going on, and it's all good!

Thank you for your prayers! Please send more of them towards the people of Arkansas. They need em haha.

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Serving A Mission!

What's all this about? As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, it is expected of me that I will serve a two-year mission. (And yeah, the "riding bikes and wearing nametags and knocking on doors" kind of mission.) But this isn't something I'm doing because it's expected of me... I'm doing this because the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed my life SO much, in SO many ways. I can't think of a greater honor or responsibility than being able to play a part in someone's story of finding and enjoying these blessings, too.